Drumbeats
by chaconneviola
Summary: A slightly AU timeline in which Rory is the Master. Begins in "Eleventh Hour," goes AU around "Good Man Goes to War/Let's Kill Hitler." No slash, no non-canon shipping. Rory-centric. All in good fun; no haters please!
1. Meetings

Hello, everyone. This is my first fanfiction, and I hope you enjoy it. I'm not writing for serious purposes; just trying to have a bit of fun and enjoy a great show. Well, Rory didn't turn out to be the Master in the show, but I thought it would make for an interesting story, so here it is.

Reviews are welcome. -chaconneviola

* * *

The first time the Doctor sees Rory, he doesn't really see him. He's impatient, trying to find Prisoner Zero—impatient to the find the patient, that's a good one, he'll have to remember that for sometime nice and relaxing and not in danger; basically sometime not in his lifetime or perhaps none of time at all—and he only sees Rory's cell phone. The cell phone pointed at the man and dog, not at the sun, and he realizes somebody knows about Prisoner Zero. Doesn't matter how. Somebody knows, which means there's a chance. And when he talks to Rory, he's a bit more terse than he needs to be, but he's upset. People have died. Or they're going to die. It's the same thing really, only a bit of time (and that's so easy to cross) between.

"Man and dog. Why?"

Rory blinks—and recognizes him.

"Oh my God, it's him."

Amy tells him to stop, just answer the question, but Rory insists.

"It's him, though. It's the Raggedy Doctor."

"Yeah, he came back," Amy say shortly.

"But he was a story—he was a game—" Rory's looking at the Doctor's face now, but the Doctor doesn't have time to think about it.

"Man and dog. Why? Tell me now!"

"Sorry." Rory looks apologetic. "Because he can't be there. Because he's—"

"—in a hospital, in a coma," they say together.

And then he's got to use the sonic—to fix the sonic—attract the Atraxi (another fun one), try to make Amelia Pond remember him, and honestly, the Doctor doesn't give Rory a second thought.

* * *

The next time they meet, the Doctor plays a joke on Rory. It's an old one but a good one—talk to the nice girl who's supposed to jump out of the cake, give her a few pounds and listen to her talk about her kid and her apartment and all that, take her place, surprise!—but Rory doesn't laugh. He looks ill at ease. And then—oops—sometimes the Doctor thinks out loud. He'd blame it on the new body, but it's been a few… time has passed. Funny how you can say something in your head and it sounds fine, but when you say it out loud…

Rory looks puzzled, but more than that. He shakes his head and blinks too much. Like a lost puppy. The Doctor likes him already. He's got on a fashionable shirt too, with a picture of himself and Amy Pond and a heart around it. The Doctor thinks it fits him well.

Almost to the TARDIS, and Rory staggers a little—tipsy, most like—and catches the Doctor's arm.

"I've seen that box before," he says.

"Entirely possible, but come with me," the Doctor says. "We don't want to keep Amy waiting."

And Rory nods a little and follows, a bit more slowly, and his eyes look a bit odd. Distant.

The Doctor hopes Rory isn't sizzled already.

* * *

Anyway, the Doctor has a plan. Rory looks too worried and too awkward. Not good. And Amy—well, Amy's a handful. Time to reunite the fiancees.

"Oh, the life out there. It dazzles. I mean, it blinds you to the things that are important. I've seen it devour relationships and plans. It's meant to do that. Because for one person to have seen all that, to taste the glory and go back—" he doesn't remember where he was going with this. It was supposed to be an explanation. And an encouragement? "—it will tear you apart. So I'm sending you somewhere, together."

Rory looks up at that.

"Whoa. What, like a date?" Amy beats him to the punch.

The Doctor smiles.

"Anywhere you want. Any time you want. One condition: it has to be amazing." He reels off his favorites. "The Moulin Rouge in 1890. The first Olympic Games. Think of it as a wedding present, because it's either this or tokens." Rory's still looking around, looking like a lost puppy, or a man in a dream. "It's a lot to take in, isn't it?" the Doctor asks, anticipating. "Tiny box, huge room. What's that about? Let me explain."

"It's another dimension," Rory says easily.

"It's basically another dimension." The Doctor pulls up short. "What?" Rory's not supposed to know that. He's a nurse, not a physicist—no, not even a physicist knows that yet. He's a nurse, not a science fiction writer, not a companion, not an alien, not an Auton—

"After what happened with Prisoner Zero, I've been reading up on all the latest scientific theories," Rory says defensively. "FTL travel, parallel universes…" he trails off.

"I like the bit when someone says it's bigger on the inside. I always look forward to that," the Doctor says, a scowl spreading across his face. Then he remembers—Rory. Amy. The wedding. He smiles and snaps back to thinking about places to go.

"So, this date," Amy interjects. "I'm tired of running down corridors. What do you think, Rory?"

* * *

Rory's supposed to be Amy's brother. He's not happy, the Doctor knows. Somehow, the whole date-in-Venice thing is turning out to be a bit of a disaster. The Doctor feels a twinge of regret. Companions.

"I've never… I mean, I've never even been in a play," Rory protests. The Doctor's helping him with his heavy embroidered tunic—Amy's getting ready in the other room—and he can't stand still. He keeps fidgeting.

"Don't worry about it," the Doctor says. "All you've got to do is act natural and show them this." He flashes the psychic paper. "What did it say?"

Rory scowls. The Doctor winces. Rory's listed as a eunuch—unfortunate.

"It doesn't say anything now. What is it, some sort of perception toy? Perception paper. No… that's not it…"

The Doctor stops, whistles.

"You have been reading up on the theories. And… that's odd."

"What?" Rory says, nervous.

"It shouldn't look blank." The Doctor steps in close and looks at him critically. "It should never look blank. Not to you."

Rory blinks, looking confused and rather vague.

"Well, I—I—"

"Well, boys, how do I look?" Amy calls, and they both have to admit, she looks stunning.

* * *

"What happened, between you and Amy?"

The Doctor sighs. He's been expecting this, but not looking forward to it.

"Now, you want to do this right now?" he snaps.

"I have a right to know! I'm getting married in four hundred and thirty years!"

The Doctor rolls his eyes, keeps scanning the darkness.

"She was frightened, I was frightened—but we survived, you know, and the relief of it—and so she kissed me."

"And you kissed her back," Rory says accusingly.

"No, I kissed her mouth."

"Funny."

The Doctor stops. Turns to Rory.

"Rory. Rory, she kissed me because I was there. It would have been you. It should have been you."

"Yeah," Rory says resentfully. "It should have been me."

"Exactly." The Doctor flashes a smile. "That's why I brought you here." Danger galore. A cold wind gusts down the tunnel and extinguishes the torch. "Can we go and see the vampires now?"

Rory follows him, but the Doctor can feel the grudge radiating off of him. Unfortunate.

"She's my wife," Rory says in a low voice.

"Not yet," the Doctor can't help putting in.

"She's my wife, and I'll have her if she kills me. Mine." And then Rory stumbles in the dark and almost knocks the Doctor over. "Wait a bit. Doctor. Didn't you—didn't you used to have dark hair?"

The Doctor swing around and almost hits him.

"What?"

"Dark—" the light hits Rory in the face, and he winces and blinks. "They're, they're vampires, yes? Shouldn't they like the dark?"

"No not that. You said something a minute ago, something about my hair."

Rory gets that confused look the Doctor's getting so used to.

"Your hair? Oh yes. Uh… I don't know, I thought it, I thought it should be darker. And you should be, I don't know, taller."

The Doctor stares at him for a moment across the torch light. Rory shakes his head, brow furrowed. The Doctor smiles and claps a hand on his shoulder.

"Jealous much, mate?"

* * *

They're back on the TARDIS, Rory holding Amy's hand—happy again—and the Doctor can't get the silence out of his mind. Silence. And cracks in time. He's trying not to remember the last time he saw a crack in time—a crack in the fabric of time, looking through to the vortex. He hopes it isn't the same. He sits haphazard at the console, his back to the lovers, and thinks about the Time War.

God, he hopes it's nothing like that again.


	2. Miracles

Thanks everyone for the kind reviews! I actually wasn't planning to update for a few days, but I got... inspired :D I'm excited about taking this places & open to suggestions.

SpaceHead3- I totally agree. I've been working out how to handle the dynamic between Amy and Master!Rory, and possessiveness would be a big part of it, especially if the Master keeps Rory's (and Roman!Rory's) memories. Two thousand years of waiting, that's more time than the Master has been alive.

* * *

"What do you mean, you're not coming with us?" Amy asks.

"Yes, Rory," the Doctor says. "What do you mean? We've got adventures planned." He feels ridiculously happy today, wearing his fez and his favorite braces, and he knows, just knows, something marvelous is going to happen. "C'mon, it'll be fun, and… stuff."

"Nope. Sorry." Rory folds his arms across his scrub-clad chest. "I've got work here. Hospital." He squints at the Doctor. "You're a Doctor. Shouldn't you be—helping people?"

"Oh Rory," the Doctor smiles. "Rory, Rory, Rory, Rory… I am helping people, every day."

Amy pouts adorably.

"Why don't you come with us?"

"I don't like the TARDIS," Rory says shortly.

"What?" the Doctor and Amy say together.

"Or I—I think she doesn't like me," he says.

"You know she's a she," the Doctor smiles. "She'll love that. Most people can't tell—most people can't tell. That's really odd that you can tell, most people can't tell. How can you tell?"

Rory shifts uncomfortably.

"I don't know. It feels… weird in there. Like she's trying not to shiver. Sometimes."

"It always feels like she's shivering," Amy says, rolling her eyes. "That's the point of the engine. C'mon, Doctor, leave the party pooper behind."

The Doctor laughs.

"Party pooper," he says, and Amy pulls him out the door.

* * *

"You wouldn't come with us," Amy says matter-of-factly. She bounces down next to him on the bed and makes her best pouty face. "You missed out on a lot. It was exciting and—wonderful."

"Yeah?" Rory keeps his eyes on his laptop screen. "Good for you, then. Maybe you should just run off with the Doctor."

"Rory!"

"Maybe you already have," he says bitterly. "It's time travel. For all I know, you've been away for months and you're just stopping by to—to—" he can't finish the sentence.

"Rory Williams," Amy exclaims. "You're jealous."

"Yes, I am!"

"Aw. You're so cute. Look. I promise I haven't been up to anything."

"You kissed him, Amy. You can't ignore that."

"I kiss a lot of people."

"Not—like that." Rory's frustrated; words are useless. "I don't like him, Amy. I don't trust him."

"Exactly why you need to come with us on adventures," Amy says. "So you can get to know him better."

"I…" Rory swallows hard. He shuts the laptop and turns on his side to look at Amy. Their faces are almost touching. "Do you ever get those moments where you're with someone and you think, somehow, you've known them before? Not the way they look or, or talk… it's like you're standing there, and you get the feeling you've already been there before, or you're going to someday and it's a sort of, a, a backwards memory… like, like reverse déjà vu, you know?" he ends helplessly.

Amy looks at him wisely for a moment, chin perched on her hand.

"Not really," she says.

Rory sighs and rolls his eyes, and she chucks him on the leg.

"I think you dream too much," she says. "You're dreaming all the time—right now—while you're awake—"

"Don't say that," Rory interrupts. "Please, Amy."

"What? Why not?"

"Because if I'm dreaming now, someday I'll have to wake up."

* * *

Rory isn't there when they visit Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh's a tormented genius—mad, like so many great minds are—and the Doctor feels a sort of pity and camaderie with the broken artist. Amy doesn't remember Rory, and that's probably for the best. She'd hate him—she'd hate the Doctor—if she remembered. The Doctor can't stop thinking about that as Vincent shows them his paintings. Sunflowers and sunsets and starry, starry nights. All mixed up and blurred together, one thing flowing into the next.

And at the end of their night at the café, Amy stops in the act of picking a jessamine blossom from the trellis and looks at him, face oddly vague.

"I say, Doctor," she says. "Who was I going to give this flower to?"

The Doctor swallows.

"Give it to Vincent," he says. And Vincent beams and kisses her hand and puts the flower in his lapel.

* * *

Rory's gone, and the Doctor can't stop thinking about it. Rory's important. He can't put his finger on it, but Rory Williams, nurse (not doctor), is important. The time energy erases humans. Erases them fully. Perhaps he's important in his absence. A shape where Rory ought to be—a Rory-sized silhouette in Amy's timeline. He's dead, even if he does return. Poison.

Rory's not coming back, ever. He's twice dead. Erased from one timeline, dead in another.

The Doctor follows Vincent Van Gogh to the church of many windows and tries to stop thinking about a Rory-sized hole in time.

* * *

"Doctor," Amy says, suddenly, when they're halfway to New York, 1923, to watch the Rockettes dance. "Doctor—do you ever the feeling that you're living out a dream?"

"Living a dream?" The Doctor laughs. "I imagine a lot of people want to feel like that."

"No, it's…" Amy looks very thoughtful. "A backwards memory. Like déjà vu in reverse. Somebody told me that once but I don't remember who. I get the strangest feeling that there's… I don't know…" she sweeps her gaze across the TARDIS controls. "Do you ever think we're missing somebody?"

The Doctor swallows.

"No," he says.

"I do. Sometimes. But only in here." Amy bounces over to join him, flipping her scarf over her shoulder. "Weird, isn't it? Like, time memories or something."

The Doctor can't say anything, so he smiles and offers his arm.

* * *

And then, impossibly, they meet again. He's not Rory Williams, the nervous, gentle healer this time—he's Rory Centurion, the Roman guard who follows Amy everywhere. The Doctor can't believe it.

"Rory, I'm not trying to be rude, but you died," he says, when they're finally alone (well, alone with the Pandorica and whatever is inside).

"Yeah, I know. I was there," Rory says.

"You died and then you were erased from time. You didn't just die, you were never born at all. You never existed." The Doctor frowns. Nobody comes back from that sort of thing.

"Erased?" Rory says, looking bewildered. "What does that mean?"

"How can you be here?" the Doctor asks.

"I… don't know. It's kind of fuzzy," admits Rory.

"Fuzzy?"

Rory shakes his head, trying to remember something.

"Well, I died, and then I turned into a Roman. It's very distracting." He looks up. "Did she miss me?"

The Doctor starts to answer and stops. He doesn't know what to say. Fortunately, the ground starts shaking, and they both have to stop and find out what's happening.

* * *

He won't ever forget the look on Rory's face when Amy brushes by him.

"Good. Love a Roman."

And Rory just—just looks. And then (of course) he turns to the Doctor, and the Doctor has trouble looking at him.

"She doesn't remember me. How can she not remember me?"

"Because," the Doctor says, simply. "You never existed." He goes on, explains about cracks in time and how Rory fell through and was never born, and Rory takes it in, processing.

"I was in the cave, with you and Amy," he says, quietly. "I was dying and then I was just—here, a Roman soldier. A proper Roman. A whole other life, just here like I'd woken up from a dream. I started to think it was a dream, you and Amy and Leadworth. And then today, in the camp, the men were talking about the visitors. The girl with the red hair. I thought you'd come _back_ for me. But she can't even remember me."

"Oh shut up," the Doctor snaps, and tosses him the ring box.

Rory looks up, his mouth hanging open a little.

"What?"

"Go get her."

"But I don't understand," Rory says. "Why am I here?"

The Doctor sighs—how can he explain?—and tries to make it simple.

"Because you are. The universe is big. It's vast and complicated and ridiculous, and sometimes, very rarely, impossible things happen and we call them miracles, and that's the theory. Nine hundred years, never seen one yet, but this would do me. Now get upstairs. She's Amy, and she's surrounded by Romans. I'm not sure history can take it."

Rory lights up, and the Doctor smiles at the gratitude in his eyes, and then Rory's gone—taken the ring box, going to find Amy. The Doctor shakes his head. Miracles. It's amazing, he's always wanted to see one, and now—but there's something nagging him, something in the back of his mind. He pushes it away and goes to see the Commander.

* * *

Later, he sees Rory and Amy walking the perimeter with all the gravity and cadence of a slow dance. Rory's arm is around Amy's shoulders, and he can't quite see her face.

The Doctor smiles.

"It's touching, isn't it?" a voice says.

"Who are you?" he exclaims. It's a woman, dark hair, pretty in sharp, tight sort of way, with a black eyepatch fixed firmly over her right eye. The Doctor steps close to her, fascinated.

"Oh, that's marvelous, that is," he says. "How do you get it to stay on without—" abruptly, she grabs his wrist, keeping him from touching.

"You can look but don't touch, Doctor," she says. Her eyes are cold, and Doctor steps away, a little chilled.

"Who are you?"

She smiles.

"I'm the one you have to run from," she says. "I'm the one that's going to fool you and then, later, I'm going to be the one to kill you." She steps closer, smile widening steadily. "And no matter how far you run or how deep you hide, I'll be right behind you."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor says.

She chuckles.

"Keep your pity for yourself," she said. "There's a storm coming- and much, much worse."

"Glad to hear it." The Doctor glances at her hand. "That's a laurel branch, isn't it? Sacred laurels of Apollo—you're the Oracle." He whips out the sonic screwdriver and scans her. "Interesting. Very interesting. So keep talking, Oracle, tell me more about this storm."

She laughs, low and cold and mad.

"Shhhhh."

And for a fraction of a second, reality shifts sideways, and everything jars and slips, and it's so- so- silent. The woman smiles coldly.

"Look to your own, Doctor. Things aren't always as they seem."

* * *

Of course it wasn't a miracle. The Doctor chides himself, dread growing in his stomach, as the centurions turn. Rory's an Auton. An Auton. That still doesn't explain why he's—Rory—but it does explain why he's trying to kill Amy. Amy runs, and the Doctor wants to help her.

And then two centurions have him, and the Pandorica is open, and the Doctor has other things to worry about.

Rory's dead three times over.


	3. Marriage

He's getting married, Rory's getting married, he'd like to stop and think things through- tuxedo clean? corsage ready, shine the shoes, must look his best must call mum again must- but he can't keep a thought in his head because, honest to God, HE'S GETTING MARRIED. He's terrified. And overjoyed.

Brushing teeth, right. The cell phone rings, and he snaps it up.

"Hello!"

"Do you feel like you've forgotten something important?" Amy's voice says on the other end.

Rory frowns, working the toothbrush and holding the phone awkwardly at the same time. Of course he does. Must call mum. Must check on the limo- a little part of him whispers there's something else, something bigger, but it's a very old, very quiet part of him. He closes the door on that thought. He's getting married. Today.

"Do you feel like there's a great big thing on your head, and you feel like you should remember it, but you can't?" Amy continues.

"Uh..." Yes of course. It's right there. Right on the tip of your finger. Rory shakes his head. "Yep."

"Are you saying that just because you're scared of me?"

"Yep."

Amy sighs. "I love you."

"Yep. Er, I mean, I love you too!"

Rory puts the phone down, frowns at the mirror. For a second he thought the reflection had shifted or something. Weird like that.

No time to think. He's getting married. He's really, he really can't believe it, he's getting married. Rory drops the toothbrush and scrambles frantically for cologne.

* * *

"Amy? You okay?"

She's stood up suddenly, face strangely vague. Rory- Rory can't imagine why.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Amy says numbly.

"Er... you're crying."

"So I am. Why am I doing that?"

A cold feeling comes into Rory's chest, and he pushes it away desperately.

"Because you're happy," he says. "Happy Mrs. Rory. Happy, happy, happy."

"No..." Amy blinks. "I'm sad. I'm really, really sad."

Rory's chest twists painfully. He swallows hard.

"Great."

"Why am I sad?" Amy catches sight of something. "What's that?"

Rory tries to push away his feelings. Shows her the book. Explains, mechanically, about the woman. Left it for her. Old wedding thing and all that. And then Amy stands up, talking nonsense, but definitely not happy. Not now. Not with him. She starts talking about someone else- the Doctor. Raggedy Doctor. An imaginary man from her childhood dreams. Rory's never resented the Doctor before, but when she says his name like that, a sudden heat rushes into his chest. He can't imagine why. The Doctor's not real. The Doctor was never-

Wind comes into the chapel, and, okay, that's a bit odd. And then the phone box appears.

The memory hits Rory full force, and he almost staggers for a moment. The cake and the vampires and dying and falling and breaking and two thousand years of waiting for Amy-

"Of course," he says. "It's the Doctor. How could we forget the Doctor?" The names tugs at his memory oddly. "I was plastic. He was the stripper at my stag party. Long story." Too long. But too short too. There's bits missing- Rory concentrates and pushes it back, looks at Amy anxiously. She's knocking at the TARDIS door.

"Okay, Doctor," she calls loudly. "Did I surprise you this time?"

The Door opens, the Doctor steps out in top hat and tails.

"Er, yeah, completely astonished. Never expected that. How lucky I happened to be wearing this old thing." He scans the room, smiles to the guests. "Hello, everyone. I'm Amy's imaginary friend. But I came anyway."

"You absolutely may kiss the bride," Amy says, stepping close. Rory's chest tightens a knot. He stares at the Doctor, and a flash of something hot and caustic flashes across his mind. The Doctor's eyes rest thoughtfully on him for a moment. Rory glares at him.

"Amelia," the Doctor says, "from now on I shall be leaving the kissing duties to the brand-new Mr. Pond."

"No, I'm not Mr. Pond. That's not how it works," Rory says. Something heavy has just bounded from his shoulders. He doesn't hate the Doctor- when had he hated the Doctor? He loves the Doctor. The Doctor's brilliant.

"Yeah, it is," says the Doctor.

"Yeah, it is," Rory agrees. Amy smiles, and Rory decides- that's how it works now. Definitely. Rory Pond. He could get used to a name like that.

* * *

Rory's back. He came back after the Second Big Bang. That's a bit—odd—but the Doctor is too overjoyed at not being dead to question it seriously. Besides, time's a bit wobbly at its best. Rory must have been intended to remain, in the original timeline, and the resetting universe restored things to how they should be, ergo… Rory's alive.

At least, that's what the Doctor tells Rory when the boy comes to him the next morning, twisting his hands nervously and asking why he has two sets of memories in his mind.

"But—I don't—I waited for her. Two thousand years. The Last Centurion… it's all there, in my mind. Another life. And I don't— understand—" he winces and shakes his head as if trying to shake something off.

"I don't understand it all either," the Doctor says. He swings down from the TARDIS console platform and flops onto the floor next to Rory. "The best explanation I can come up with is that there's something unique and necessary about you and Amy. She's a remarkable woman—brought you back, and me—and you, well…"

"I know," Rory says bitterly. "Everyone wonders how I ended up with her. Well, I waited. For years. Before, and… before."

"No, there's something about _you _in particular. You shouldn't have come back as the Last Centurion. She didn't remember you at all. I called it a miracle once, but it's more like…" he leans back, looking for words. "You were meant to be here."

"Oh," Rory says. "Oh." He smiles slowly.

"And that worries me," the Doctor goes on.

"Oh."

"Why did you come back, why are you so important to reality? Don't take it personally—if it were me, I'd be asking the same questions," the Doctor says. "You are human, aren't you?" Before Rory can answer, he has the sonic screwdriver out and scans him. "Yes. Definitely human. But, if I had to guess… you've got tangled or linked to the fabric of space and time somehow. I'm not sure on the details yet. But it's like… without you, the universe is incomplete somehow." He picks up steam, excited. "Every time you die, the universe summons or creates a new Rory Williams. A quantum anomaly. It's not as simple as a fixed point in time. Falling through a crack in time might have done it, if you happened to hit the eye of the Vortex, or the heart of a singularity… Or maybe it's still in your future. Amy talked about something weird once—memories that haven't happened yet. In the TARDIS… she'd remember things how they ought to be, things how they were before the time cracks. She started remembering you."

Rory stands up. His face is unreadable.

"Thanks, Doctor. You've made me feel a lot better."

* * *

The next time they talk about the Centurion, Rory doesn't want to talk, but the Doctor has to know. It's been bothering him. Not seriously bothering him enough to make him do research or look through the TARDIS database, just… it nags at his curiousity. He wonders if Rory remembers his time as the Last Centurion the way he remembers his regenerations. Or tries to forget.

"Do you still remember it? Two thousand years, waiting for Amy? The Last Centurion."

"No," Rory says automatically.

"You're lying."

"Of course I'm lying," Rory says, and there's just a hint of something dark there.

"Of course you are. Not the sort of thing anyone forgets."

"But I don't remember it all the time. It's like this door in my head. I can keep it shut."

There's just the slightest stress on "can," and the Doctor looks at him sympathetically. Wishes he can, more like.

"There are some too, like dreams…" Rory shakes his head. "Weird. A spiral that touches everything, and it breaks your mind. It's like something I saw in a dream, maybe, or in the light…" He stops, face blank, and blinks several times. "I try not to think about it. I try to forget. I, I keep it shut, mostly."

* * *

The Doctor wishes he could forget Rory's face when they hear Amy's message begging "him" to save her. He looks at the Doctor, and before Rory can hide it, the Doctor thinks he knows what agony looks like.

* * *

"She hates me," Rory says. The Doctor glances at him—why does Rory always have to choose moments of impending peril to share his feelings?—and claps him on the arm.

"No no no, Rory, don't talk like that."

"Why? It's true, isn't it? It was you." Rory stops and leans against the wall. "It was always you. Why didn't I see it before?"

"Rory, now wait a minute, I don't think—"

For a moment, Rory glances up at him, and the Doctor swallows instinctively at the sheer fury on his face. It's gone in a moment, though, and Rory passes a shaky hand over his forehead.

"I'm sorry, Doctor," he says with a hollow laugh. "Really, I'm sorry. I don't hate you, I'm just… it's just Amy."

* * *

"I don't want to tell Rory his baby might have three heads, or like, a timehead or something," Amy explains.

Ah. This is complicated. The Doctor sees the transmitter and—yes, Rory should be listening in. He hopes Amy will set it right.

"What's a timehead?" he asks.

"I don't know, but what if it had one?" Amy persists.

"A timehead," he repeats.

"Shut up." Amy sighs, presses a hand on her stomach, and turns away. Then a bit of mischief comes into her eyes. She sighs. "Oi, stupid face."

"Er, yeah?" Rory asks, and the Doctor could almost smile from the relief on his face.

"I'm taking that away from you, if you're going to listen in on me all the time."

"Okay, that's a fair point," Rory says. "But… you should have told me you were pregnant. I'm a nurse. I'm good with pregnancy."

"Not, as it turns out, that good. So please stop being stupid."

"Er, no," Rory says, earnestly. "I'm never, ever going to stop being stupid."

The Doctor interrupts by calling attention to the girl—who is she? Where did she come from?—and they come to the TARDIS console together. Rory stands closer to his wife than usual. He won't leave her that day, or the next. He follows her everywhere, never more than five feet away, until Amy loses patience and storms off to the Ladies' Wing.

And the Doctor can't bring himself to show Rory the scans of Amy's pregnancy. Because there is something wrong. Something very, very wrong. Amy's child is… well, it looks like… the child of a Time Lord.

* * *

"I'm sorry," Rory says, when they're alone again. Amy's in the shower—late morning luxury showers have become a norm in the past week—and the Doctor's doing jiggery-pokery under the TARDIS console. "About what I said."

"What?" the Doctor slides out from under the console. "What are you going on about?"

"Just, before. With Amy."

"Oh. Oh! Don't give it another thought. I was mad, you were mad… I wouldn't blame you."

"Thanks," Rory says, relieved. There's a long silence. Suddenly, Rory's face is close to the Doctor's, and he jumps and nearly drops the sonic.

"Rory!"

"I don't hate you, Doctor," he says seriously. "I don't, I really don't."

"What… of course not. I know you don't. Why would you think… I would think… you would?"

"Er… nothing. No reason."

* * *

"Rory, quit that tapping," Amy snaps.

Rory looks up, startled, and look at his hand. It's early in the morning, and his brain isn't functioning one hundred percent yet.

"Tapping, right, stopping," he mumbles. He's become used to Amy's morning irritability—and happiness washes over him at the thought of what's causing her irritability. He's going to be a father. He never thought he could feel so happy and… warm.

"Oi! Rory!"

Rory blinks again and snaps out of his thoughts.

"Yes! I mean, no! I mean…" he furrows his brow. "What was the question?"

Amy sighs, puts down her cereal spoon with a clink.

"Why are smiling like an idiot?" she asks.

"Er, because I am an idiot?" he begins. Then, getting an inspiration, "I am, Amy. I'm absolutely, idiotically in love with you, and every time I look at you, I'm so glad to be an idiot. I'm your idiot. And I'd rather be your idiot than anybody else's genius, and…" he falters. Amy's eyes are bright and wet. "Too much?"

"Stupid face," Amy whispers.

Rory thinks he's on fire with happiness. The TARDIS shudders disconcertingly under his feet and he doesn't even notice.

* * *

"And then we discovered it wasn't the Robot King at all, it was the real one," the Doctor smiles, concluding the story. "Fortunately, I was able to re-attach the head."

Rory snorts.

"Do you believe any of this stuff?" he asks his wife.

"Hey, I was there."

Rory looks like he's going to press the point, but then the Doctor's distracted—something's going off on the TARDIS console and he runs over to check.

"Oh, it's the warning lights. I'm getting rid of those; they never stop."

And then—knocking. Someone's knocking on his TARDIS door. The Doctor stops, running through the possibilities. Cyberman. Lost astronaut. Gaseous being. River Song. Not, definitely, not—

And, impossibly, it is.

"Oh, come here. Come here, you scrumptious little beauty!" The hypercube flies inside, orbits the TARDIS core erratically, and thumps into the Doctor's chest. He catches in and holds it gently, reverentially. Someone's… someone's alive. He's beaming ridiculously and staring at the box almost hungrily.

"A box?" Rory says, jarring the Doctor out of his thoughts.

"Doctor, what is it?" Amy asks.

"I've got mail!" the Doctor exclaims. He can't believe it. "Time Lord emergency messaging system. In an emergency, we'd wrap up thoughts in a psychic containers and send them through time and space. Anyway…" he still can't believe it. "There's a living Time Lord out there and it's one of the good ones."

Rory frowns.

"You said there weren't any other Time Lords left," he says.

"There are no more Time Lords left in the universe," the Doctor says. For now, anyway. "But the universe isn't where we're going." We're going out. And bringing the Corsair back. His hearts are beating strangely at the thought of another Time Lord. Not alone. Not alone.

* * *

"You said before—you said it was one of the good Time Lords," Rory says, as the Doctor runs frantically around the TARDIS core, trying to figure out where the Matrix went. "Are there any other kinds?"

"Not now, Rory, I'm trying very hard to figure out what's happened to my TARDIS, not only so I can rescue her but so I can rescue us and we're not trapped on this little… garbage heap… for eternity or longer," the Doctor snaps. "And yes, there are other kinds. Were. Four basic kinds, four basic flavors of Time Lord: nice, not nice, _really_ not nice, and crazy." He hastily scans the top of the console with the screwdriver. "Lucky for you, I fall into the first category."

"You sure about that, Raggedy Man?" Amy says, trading looks with Rory.

"More or less." He's standing on tiptoe, one cheek pressed up against the empty tubes of the core. He steps back, giving up. He'll have to improvise. "Oh! Pond! Those warning lights. I knew they weren't broken—I knew there was another Time Lord out there somewhere. Maybe he'll help me repair my TARDIS, now that's she's… no longer functional." He claps his hand together, filled with anticipation. "The Corsair's a big fellow—you'll like him Amy. Assuming it's a him this time."

* * *

The Doctor knew something was wrong the moment his feet touched the ground. Something was off… the planet was alive. And then he meets Auntie, and Uncle, and Nephew… and House.

And then he finds the closet. There are a dozen of the distress boxes, chattering around, and he goes cold all over. The other Time Lords, the many other Time Lords, are… nothing but a chorus of ghosts. Cries for help from the long dead. He closes his eyes. Oh God.

Uncle and Auntie come up behind him, and he tries to be civil. But he can't think, not really. He's alone again. It's been a long time since he felt this alone.

"You gave me hope, and then you took it away. That's enough to make anyone dangerous," he says, his voice cracking slightly. "Basically… run."

"Poor old Time Lord," Uncle says, a twisted cracked sort of sympathy. "Too late. House is too clever."

The Doctor runs.

And then he meets Idris. TARDIS. His TARDIS, his own, beautiful, psychotic TARDIS. He talks with her partly because he has to—Rory and Amy are back in the shell of her, House is gone, he can't trust Uncle and Auntie, and he needs to find out what happened—and partly because, with her here, he's not alone anymore. He wonders if she remembers Gallifrey. She remembers the future at any rate. Remember what he's going to say. He wonders if TARDISes have more complex lives than Time Lords. She tells him about House, oddly calm. About her own planned murder. He calls to Amy and Rory, starts to run to them, and Idris calls him back.

"Wait—Doctor. My Doctor."

"What? And please say it quickly, they're dying over there!"

"For you. The one with the tattoo had it, and then Nephew had it, and now I have it. Or you do. Listen to that, I made a time sentence!" she laughs delightedly. "All in the right order. Better hide it. I don't like him, even if he is pretty."

The Doctor takes it. Gold watch, gold chain, embossed with circular Gallifrean. He knows what this is. Who it belongs to, he'll see later.

"Thanks," he says shortly. "Now—come on. We've got to save them."

* * *

After Amy and Rory are in bed, curled around each other like frightened children—which is really what they are—the Doctor puts the fob watch away. Rory's ring box is gone, so he pops the watch into the timeshield compartment and locks it. No one will steal this. And when he gets—when he doesn't feel so much like crying, he'll figure out who it belonged to.

* * *

"I thought you were going to fix that," Amy remarks the next morning.

The Doctor glances at the warning lights, still blazing away. Bad wiring in a broken-down TARDIS.

"Don't bother me now, Pond," he says. "I'm… tired."


	4. Memory

Thanks for all the feedback! Remember, reviews are love :)

* * *

Four days later, the Doctor wakes up in the middle of the night. Someone's touching his TARDIS console, he knows it. He goes out and finds—

"Rory. What are you doing up?"

Rory looks up, his face suddenly going blank, and the Doctor tenses. Something's wrong. He notices the dark shadows under Rory's eyes.

"Trouble sleeping?"

"I can't sleep," Rory says, abruptly. "I can't… it's…" he waves his hands vaguely. "Sorry. Bad dreams."

The Doctor maneuvers his way to the console and slides down the ground, keeping an eye on Rory and what he was doing with the console—what was he doing with the console?

"Tell me about it," the Doctor says, in the join-the-club tone of voice.

Rory sits next to him and rubs his eyes.

"It's just… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm being stupid again."

"No, tell me about this dream."

"I don't think you'll like it." Rory sighs. He folds his hands across his chest, unfolds them. Looks around the console. The Doctor waits. "I'm dying. In, in the dream. I don't understand how I got there, but I'm in front of the TARDIS, with you, and—and Amy shoots me." His voice sounds hollow. "Only it's not Amy, somehow, it's just—she's not right. Because she wouldn't shoot me, not really, not in real life. She shoots me, and I die. And you're there, holding me, asking me not to die, but she doesn't care. She's glad I'm going." He covers his face his hands.

"Rory—" the Doctor begins, sliding a hand around Rory's shoulders.

"And I hate you more than I've hated anyone, ever," Rory says, his voice muffled. The Doctor stops. "In the dream, I mean. I'm dying, and you're begging me not to die, but I—I'm not trying to stay. Because I know it will hurt you. And it's wrong, it's all wrong!" he ends. He drops his hands. "I don't hate you, Doctor. Not even in the dream, I'm just…" he starts crying.

The Doctor is very still.

"Rory," he says.

"I'm sorry. I don't want to dream it, but it just keeps coming back. Ever since we left House. I think they drugged me or something. Could they have drugged me?"

"Rory," the Doctor says again.

"And—I don't know, it's stress or something. I can't think. I can't concentrate. I've got a pounding headache and it won't go away."

"RORY."

Rory stops and looks up quickly, his cheeks still stained with tears.

"What were you doing by the TARDIS console?" the Doctor asks. Because he has to know.

"I don't know," Rory says. "I don't know. I just… it's worse out here. The headache. I thought maybe… those crystals the Dream Lord used… I just want it to stop, Doctor. I just want to sleep."

The Doctor sighs and runs a hand through his hair. Not good.

"Come here." He leads Rory to another compartment in the TARDIS and offers him thirty-fifth century slumber chews, the same kind he takes. The only kind he takes. "Take two and call me in the morning. And, er, Rory, it might be time for a vacation. Sleeping in a nice hotel bed, walks on the beach… maybe I'll drop us someplace nice and peaceful for a spell. Someplace quiet."

"Thank you, Doctor."

After Rory goes to bed, the Doctor goes to the console where he was standing. He checks the instruments and runs an air scan. Nothing. And then he remembers the compartment with the fob watch. The Doctor takes it out and frowns. The owner is long dead. Dead many times over.

The Doctor turns the watch over and over in his hands. House's watch. Nephew's watch. It tingles under his palm. Abruptly, he walks to the TARDIS door and opens it. The local supercluster twinkles at him serenely, far too close and far too beautiful. The Doctor winds up and throws the watch as far as he can. He lowers the air shields for a moment and watches it spin away, end over end, until it is nothing but one tiny sparkle among millions.

He goes to bed and tries to sleep. He wonders why Rory has contracted one of the Doctor's nightmares. The thought won't let him sleep.

* * *

They go to Barcelona in the Renaissance. The beach is all sparkling water and white sand, and they eat like noblemen in the inn. Well, upper middle class. Middle class, anyway. It's delicious. Amy laughs her beautiful laugh as she chases fish in the shallows, and Rory runs out to catch her, running his funny seesaw gait. The sunlight flashes on the splashing water.

On the beach, the Doctor smiles. It's been a long time since he saw Amy and Rory this happy. It's been a long time since he felt this happy. He adjusts his sunglasses and listens to the sound of laughter on the breeze.

* * *

"Oi! Stop that! Stop it!" Amy shrieks happily. Rory only laughs and splashes her harder.

"Never gonna stop," he shouts. He glances over his shoulder to where the Doctor watches on the beach, and his smile falters for a moment. Lately, the Doctor's been—odd. And that's saying something. He watches Rory. Not staring or observing, just... wary. He's watching Rory right now.

"What're you looking at?" Amy asks, sloshing over to him, thigh-deep in seawater.

"He's… watching us."

"Yeah, so? You should be happy. Keeping us safe. That's the point of a life guard."

Rory licks his lips, tries to smile and go back to playing in the ocean, but he can't shake the uneasy feeling of eyes on his back.

* * *

The Doctor's become awfully polite to him too. He holds the door for Amy and waits for Rory (something he never did before). He asks Rory questions. How are you sleeping? How's your mum and dad? You remember them, right?

"I remember them fine, Doctor!" Rory finally snaps. "Look, the, the dream on the TARDIS was a freak thing. I'm Rory. Good Rory, human Rory. No plastic. No guns. Scan me and see."

The Doctor looks skeptical for a moment, and then he whips out his screwdriver—hang it, Rory hadn't been serious—and actually scans Rory.

"Well?"

The Doctor looks at the screwdriver, relaxes a tiny bit, and smiles sheepishly.

"Right. Sorry. Just… sorry, mate." He pats Rory's shoulder awkwardly.

But he doesn't stop watching. Just gets more careful and thinks Rory doesn't notice. Rory bites his lip and wonders why it bothers him so much.

* * *

Daleks. Of course there had to be Daleks in Barcelona. There must a rule somewhere in the universe that any time the Doctor goes someplace, Daleks (or Cybermen, or Silurians, or space ghosts, or gelinatous flesh creatures) must be there as well. The Daleks—only two of them—turned out to be sleeper agents that had been sent from—someplace, wherever Daleks started—someplace—_Skaro, _something whispered—

The Daleks—only two of them—turned out to be sleeper agents that had been sent and forgotten millennia ago. If the Doctor hadn't come, they might have stayed dormant forever.

"Your pitiful weapons are no match against the Daaalek might," one buzzes defiantly.

"Er—" Rory steps in front of his wife and wishes fervently for the Doctor to come back. "Stay back. I've got a very—dangerous—uh, thing—"

"The human lies!"

"You will be exterminated!"

"Oh, brilliant going," Amy says. "We're going to be exterminated. What, like rats?"

"You don't remember me," Rory says grimly. "Daleks. You don't remember me, but I remember you." The Daleks hesitate and let they eyestalks revolve back and forth. It almost looks like they're thinking. "I've lived for hundreds of years. I've killed dozens of you before."

"The human lies." There's much less certainty in that electronic voice. "Your lifespan is less than one century. You cannot destroy a Dalek!"

Rory starts to reply, but a strange hot feeling settles over his chest. No need to be scared—he feels full of confidence, full of warmth, full of… of… he chuckles. Pitiful Dalek. He doesn't know why the thought seems so natural, but it does.

Rory tilts his head, works his neck around slowly. Smiles.

"Let's test that theory."

* * *

"—doing in Barcelona is beyond me, but a better question is: how did Rory manage to destroy two, not one, but two Daleks… ah, Rory, back with us, hmmm?" The Doctor suddenly appears, far too close and Rory blinks.

"Doctor."

The screwdriver's out, and Rory catches that look in the Doctor's eyes—careful. Or wary.

"Body temperature normal, heartbeat normal, eye response a bit sluggish but normal for Rory, brain activity… normal, considering you used to be a plastic Roman—" the Doctor stops only to breathe. "Right then, Mr. Pond, explanation time. What happened to those Daleks?"

"Um. Right. I—" Rory stops. "I killed them."

"You killed them brilliantly," Amy says approvingly. "Didn't know you had it in you. Roranicus."

Rory blushes furiously.

"No no no. Stop that. No flirting 'til I've had my questions answered," says the Doctor, abruptly. "Rory. Daleks. Dead. Dead Daleks. How?"

"I—I— ask Amy, she was right there."

"No. No, you tell me. Tell me now."

"I—don't know, it just sort of happened! No need to get all bothered, Doctor, I've sure it was—" Rory shakes his head, looking for an explanation. "Training. Just, just training. Auton. Or Roman training. It just sort of—came back to me. And now it's gone. There's a term for it but I can't remember it. Like when amnesia patients can't remember their names or addresses, but they remember how to ride a bike or play piano. Er, er, you know. Procedural memory versus, uh, declarative memory. That's it."

Amy looks skeptical, but the Doctor nods slowly.

"Yes," he says, carefully, his eyes wary. "I know what you mean."

* * *

"So what did happen? With the Daleks, I mean."

"Oh." Amy tosses her basket on the bed and starts fidgeting with the tags on her dress. "You were brilliant, really. I mean, I've heard about—I've read about the Lone Centurion and all that, but I've got to say…" she bounces down on the bed. "You took me by surprise."

"Took you by surprise?"

"Mm-hm. Totally, completely, amazingly surprised."

Rory feels a smile creep across his face.

"Really…"

"Really truly. Aren't you going to do anything about it?"


	5. Missing

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback! Here's a little Doctor-Master comic for you: . I didn't make it, but I think it's excellent.

Peace, love, and Dr. Who!

* * *

"Doctor," Rory says, his arm around Amy. "My wife is the most beautiful woman in the timestream."

"Oh!" Amy cries, pretending to pelt him with grapes. "Flatterer!"

"It's not flattery if it's true. She's the most beautiful…" Rory stops in mid-sentence, the words fading on his lips. The Doctor leans forward a little.

"What's wrong, Rory?"

"I… I don't…" Rory looks back at him, his eyes refocusing. "Sorry. Sorry. Bit of—stress. What was I saying?"

Amy extricates herself from his grip and excuses herself to the waiting room.

"Nice going there, Cicero," she calls over her shoulder. The Doctor waits until she's gone.

"Rory, what was that?"

Rory won't answer yet. He picks at the tablecloth and fidgets nervously.

"Are there Indians around here?"

"Indians?—Rory, put that down, for God's sake. We're in Spain in the eighteenth century, there are no Indians." The Doctor laughs, but can't quite cover the worry. "Why do you ask?"

"Er, never mind. I just… think I'll go see what's taking Amy."

* * *

Amy's been taken. That's all Rory can think about, and the Doctor too. It was a ruse the whole time, Amy's gone, only Flesh—Rory's propped up against the TARDIS console with his head in his hands. He hasn't slept for two days. The Doctor knows because he hasn't slept for two days either. But at least he's had something to do, tracing the signal…

"It's starting, isn't it?" a female voice says, quite close to him. The Doctor looks up, startled.

"How did you get in here?"

River Song smiles, infuriatingly coy.

"Spoilers."

"No really, how did you get in here? I put a firewall—"

She puts a finger on his lips.

"Shhh. I wanted to see you one last time, before…" she sighs. "I'm so sorry, love. It's going to be rough ride."

"What do you mean?" He scrambles to his feet. "You're from the future—I mean the future future—I mean your past, my future—"

"It does get confusing after a while." River Song smiles and turns to survey the inside of the TARDIS. "He's finally getting some sleep. Good."

"Yes, he's… having dreams," the Doctor said. "But how do you know about that?"

He expects River to smile (spoilers!), but she looks away.

"I can't tell you now," she says quietly. "Send him to find me—the current version of me—when you're recruiting for your Second Time War. And remember, my love, whatever happens-"

She grabs his lapels, pulls him forward for a long kiss, and vanishes. The Doctor stumbles back, wiping his mouth. A Second Time War? A cold feeling spreads over him.

* * *

The Doctor had to send him to find River Song. It's stupid, really. Really stupid. He's wearing his centurion getup and trying to keep the door closed, but he can't help thinking that River would listen much better to "sweetie" than to him. Rory paces outside her cell and waits. She comes in, breathless and vibrant from an impossible date in the future-past-future, and he stops her.

"They've taken Amy. And our baby. The Doctor's getting some people together. We're going after her, but he needs you too."

River's face falls.

"I can't," she says quietly. "Not yet, anyway."

"I'm sorry?" Rory hadn't expected to hear that.

"This is the battle of Demon's Run," River Song says. "The Doctor's darkest hour. He'll rise higher than ever before and then fall so much farther, and I can't be with him until the very end."

"Why not?"

"Because," River Song says, and sighs. "This is the day he finds out who I am."

Rory would argue, but he has enough to worry about, and besides, River Song isn't known for her listening skills. He turns to go.

"Wait!" she calls. "There's something more. Something for you."

Rory turns back, puzzled.

"Something for me?"

"Yes, I—went through a lot to find it," River says. Rory frowns at the catch in her voice.

"Is it a weapon? Something to help the Doctor, or find Amy, or something—"

"No," she says quickly. "No. Nothing like that. It's for you. It… it's you."

And she crosses over to him quickly and gives him something small and hard and round and cold, and it tingles briefly in Rory's hand. He looks down at the little watch, turns it over in his hand.

"You can read it?" River asks.

"Not…" Rory's thoughts blur for a moment. Briefly, the winding, circular engravings start shifting, turning into something, something like words. But the moment passes, and he looks back up. "I'm sorry, what is it? Some sort of perception filter?"

"Something like that," River says. "It's a key. A key that—opens a very old door. I'm sorry."

Before Rory can say anything, she's turned and flounced back to her cell. He stares for a moment and holds the watch to his ear. He thinks he can hear something. Ticking, perhaps. But it fades after a few seconds.

* * *

The Doctor can't think about Rory right now, even though the nightmares have come back and he can hear Rory pacing in the hall outside their quarters (complements of the Anglican Church). He can't, because it's coming together, and he has to think about Dorian and Lucas and Dominicus, and damn it, River's wrong, he's not starting another Time War, just a war through time. There's a difference, there's a big difference, and why would she even know what a Time War is? He wouldn't. Couldn't. Isn't. The Doctor can't sleep. The Doctor can't even lie still.

The Battle of Demon Run. That's what tomorrow will be called, however many years from now River Song wrote it in her diary. Rory told him that. The Battle. First of a war? Not a war. He'd never wage war. He doesn't have an army, only Vastra and Jenny Flint and Dorium Maldovar and Strax and… okay, he has a small army.

He is not Rassilon.

Memories filter back, and he tries to stop them. The sky on fire. The Master's hunted, haunted look (and who ever frightened that old fox?). White Star. Time Lock. All of Gallifrey burning, a whole planet screaming, on fire… Impossible things without description, nightmares of nightmares. Atrocity on atrocity, every one more horrific and slightly sooner than the last. Time. War. Time War.

And Rory's pacing. Why won't he stop pacing? The Doctor can't sleep.

He gets up and almost charges to the door.

"Are you going to walk there all night?" he yells.

Rory turns, guiltily jerking his hand off his shoulder and hiding it behind his back. He's a mess, the Doctor didn't realize that. There are dark shadows under his eyes, darker than the Doctor's ever seen, and he keeps twitching.

"It won't stop," Rory rasps.

"What won't stop?" the Doctor fires back. "What? What is so important that you have to be pacing and tapping and keeping me awake at all hours of the night, on this night of all nights. Because I'm trying to sleep so I can come up with a decent plan tomorrow so we don't all get butchered!"

"It's—" Rory starts to speak and then stops. He rocks back and forth on his feet, darts a quick glance at the Doctor, and wipes his face with a sweaty hand. "Oh God. I'm sorry. It's just stress. Just, just this headache, this banging in my head. I can't focus, I can't sleep, I can't hardly think about Amy…"

The Doctor sighs.

"Look," he says, a little softer. "I'm sorry. I really am. I don't know what to do. I thought it was the watch and I threw the watch away—sorry. I'm tired. Oh, Rory." He slumps against the wall and closes his eyes briefly. His voice is almost a whisper. He looks at his feet, remembering the feet and clothes and faces he's worn through the years, and he suddenly feels so old. "I'm so, so tired. I don't know what's happening, but I've got to know or pretend I know by tomorrow. I can't start a Time War. Won't. You won't believe me, but I didn't want to end the last one. I tried everything, you know, every dream and legend and half-forgotten machine I could find, but I'm not- I don't have the genius for it. I thought maybe if you-" he checks himself. "I thought there might be another way, but there was no other way. I had to end it. Didn't want to. Had to use the time lock and now y-they're never coming back. It's a horrible thing to be alone, Rory. To be old and... tired. And remember such things, things in the war." He shudders. "I'm so tired."

They stand there for a moment, looking at each other from opposite ends of the hallway. For a moment, the Doctor thinks Rory's going to- to what? Something important. He holds his breath. Then Rory moves, lowering his hand.

"I'll just go to bed then," he mumbles.

"Yes. Yes, I'll go to bed too," the Doctor says, and feels a sense of—wrongness. Embarrassment. Like a wrong note in a song, or a wrong step in a dance. "I'll just…"

But Rory's gone, and the Doctor goes back into his room and falls on the bed and sleeps. He tries not to dream.

* * *

The next morning, the Doctor and Strax and Vastra are eating breakfast together around a holographic fire when Rory stumbles in. Half-sits, half-falls into the flimsy metal chair.

"I'm going to find her," he announces. His voice is queer—numb and distant. "I'm going to kill whoever took her. And then—I'm going back to Leadworth. We're going back. It will be better there. Quieter."

Across the fire, the Doctor deflates slowly, but doesn't say anything.


	6. Madness

Annd here we go! There will be sadness and pain ahead, but stay with me... I promise it will get better...

Thanks so much for the kind reviews! It makes my day!

* * *

Rory keeps fidgeting and twitching behind the Doctor. But the Doctor is caught in the same tranquil fury he wore when- but he doesn't think about that. The woman is here. Hate, dark and hot, wells up in his chest. He clenches his fists. Strax comes in, frog-marching a stoic colonel before him.

"All airlocks sealed. Resistance neutralised," Strax announces.

"Sorry, Colonel Manton. I lied." _Rule one. _"Three minutes forty-two seconds."

"Colonel Manton, you will give the order for your men to withdraw," snaps Strax.

"No," the Doctor says. They pause and look at him. "Colonel Manton, I want you to tell your men to run away."

"What?"

"Those words. Run away. I want you to be famous for those exact words. I want people to call you Colonel Run-Away. I want children laughing outside your door, because they've found the house of Colonel Run-Away. And, when people come to you, and ask you if trying to get to me through the people I love is in any way a good idea, I want you to tell them your name." He stops, trying to check himself. "Oh, look, I'm angry. That's new. I'm not really sure what's going to happen now."

"The anger of a good man is not a problem," the woman states. "Good men have too many rules."

The Doctor turns slowly, shaking a little. He remembers the way Gallifrey looked in those last moments. A whole planet screaming at once. The slow fire spreading over his home, flaming bright and red before leaving the planet empty, turning the gold to grey. He remembers the look on Rassilon's face. The pride. And the fear, the agony, on the others standing with him. He remembers closing the Time Lock the second time. That last glimpse of terror and madness and despair and _pain _on the face of his-

"Good men don't need rules," he says, keeping his voice under control. "Today is not the day to find out why I have so many."

The woman stills for a moment.

"Give the order, Colonel Run-Away."

* * *

Rory waits until the Doctor is outside before turning to the man.

"Now, Colonel Run-Away," Rory says, his voice shaking a little despite himself. "Where's my wife?"

Colonel Manton refuses to look at him, shifts his face away a tiny bit. RAGE.

"Look at me," Rory said. Nothing. "LOOK AT ME!" _Pitiful sniveling fool open your eyes open your mouth cower before the might of my terror crimson in the passing as the drums the drums the drums of war-_

The Colonel's on the ground, shaking, and Rory vaguely realizes he's struck the man. That the man is shaking despite his training, that Rory's throat is raw and Strax is shifting feet and looking at him uncomfortably. That the Doctor will hear and come back.

"Stop," Rory says. It comes out a snarl, surprising even him. "Stop that right now. Look at me. You worthless, spineless little-" he gulps. That's not right. "You took my wife. WHERE IS SHE!"

"Sir-" Strax begins. Rory's head is too loud. He backhands Strax without thinking and glares wildly at the Colonel, focusing all of his mind, all his will.

"YOU WILL TELL ME WHERE MY WIFE IS!"

The Colonel snaps to attention.

"Sir, yes, sir! She's- she's down the corridor, in the sickbay. Minimal guards, we were hoping to bluff-"

Rory stand up, breathing heavily. Reaches for his sword and puts it to the Colonel's throat. He hates the man, hates him so much, and the hate is making his head hurt and throb.

"Sir, you can't!" Strax shouts. "The Doctor- I mean- killing prisoners of war without cause violates the rules of warfare-"

Makes his head throb so he can't think.

"The Doctor's the one with all the rules," Rory grits between his teeth. "Don't ever confuse him with me."

* * *

The Doctor's almost done sonicking the ship's communications network to find out where they're keeping Amy when Rory and Strax almost stumble into him.

"Watch it!" he snaps. "I'm doing-"

"Sickbay," Rory pants. "She's in sickbay. They were trying to... bluff us."

The Doctor raises his eyebrows. Strax nods, looking slightly sick, and the Doctor wants to ask Rory how he got the Colonel to talk. He thinks better of it.

"Good work," he says, and claps Rory on the hand.

They run together to find Amy. They find her.

* * *

The Doctor gets distracted- stuff happening- and he forgets about Rory until, until Vastra finds the files on Melody Pond.

"But she's human! She's Amy's and Rory's daughter!" the Doctor protests.

"You've told me about your people. They became what they did through prolonged exposure to the time vortex. The Untempered Schism," Vastra says evenly.

"Over billions of years. It didn't just happen!"

"So how close is she? Could she even regenerate?" Vastra asks.

"No, you don't understand. It happened by degrees, by tiny degrees—she couldn't be part Time Lord and part human, like this, by exposure to the schism. She's be human with a tiny little snip of mutated genetic information, like, like, a human with the beginning of a… timehead," the Doctor falters. "It's complicated. We weren't humans who evolved, we had a different genetic structure altogether. Two hearts, remember? I don't know how a human born in the vortex would mutate, but it wouldn't look like that. It wouldn't be a Time Lord—"

There's a burst of static behind them, and they turn together.

"I see you accessed our files. Do you understand yet?" The woman in the eye patch flickers onto the screen, chin held high in bitter triumph. "Oh, don't worry, I'm a long way away. But I like to keep tabs on you. The child, then. What do you think?"

"What is she?" the Doctor asks.

"Hope," the woman says, spitting the word out like something sharp and flinty. "Hope in this bitter, endless war."

"What war? Against who?"

"Against you, Doctor." Her words are grinding, hard. "The Second Great Time War. For you, it hasn't begun yet. You know the strategy of a Time War. Strike when your enemy is weak and unsuspecting. First blood, again and again."

"A child is not a weapon!"

"Oh, give us time. She can be. She will be. Everyone can be turned into a weapon, Doctor. With just a little… time." She smiles, eyes hard and cold. "Fooling you once was a joy. Fooling you twice the same way will be a privilege." She takes something small and white, holds it in front of him. Pushes the button. "And now… now it's begun for you too. The last beginning of the Second Time War."

"What have you done?" the Doctor chokes.

The woman throws her head back and laughs, and Vastra bristles behind him.

"I've just brought our paramount into play. Demons may run, but it takes two good men to have a war," she says. "Better look to your own, Doctor. Things aren't always what they appear."

And then the Doctor understands the truth, and the truth is hard and horrible.

"Rory. Rory," he whispers.

And the Doctor runs.

* * *

Dorium Maldovar is sprawled in a heap, and Strax is propped up, dying, when they reach the room. But nobody notices that, because Amy is hunched on the floor near a Gallifreyan bassinet, sobbing. Rory has his arms around her. His face is hidden in her hair. The Doctor and Vastra pull up short.

"The baby, she's not real. She's not here," Amy screams. "She's a ganger. A ganger."

"We need to get out of here, sir," says Jenny Flint, eerily calm. "They'll send more monks. Doctor, the TARDIS, sir?"

He can't move. Can't think. He should say something.

"Rory," he says, at last.

"Strax is dead," Rory says, without looking up. "Lorna—the girl—she died. She wanted to talk to you. Dorium's dead. Everyone's dead. My daughter is gone. You failed, Doctor. You _failed."_

The Doctor is very still.

"I'm sorry," he says. "Listen—Rory—there's something I need to tell you."

Rory raises his head slowly. The Doctor blanches a little. He looks worse than last night, and that's saying quite a lot.

"You," Rory says. "You. Listen." He cocks his head, blinking quickly. "It started in earnest when they took her. The monks, the monks, I can hear them."

"You can hear them," the Doctor says. He knows where this is going, and he has an unpleasant feeling about it.

"Drums, Doctor. Can't you hear the drums?" Rory looks up desperately.

"Drums?" Amy asks. She looks up from her tears. "Rory… what are you talking about?"

"There are no drums," Vastra says cleanly.

Rory stumbles to his feet, and the Doctor automatically flinches when he sees the gun. Where'd Rory get a gun? Centurions use swords, that's the whole point of a Roman—

"No drums?" he says, his voice cracking slightly. "I hear them. I hear them all the time. They just won't stop. I can't do it. I can't go on like this." The gun comes up, shaking, and settles on the Doctor.

"Uh—Rory—just hang on, just hang for a moment," the Doctor says, holding his hands up. He sees Vastra moving out of the corner of his eye and hopes Rory doesn't see it too. "Think about Amy. Think about your child."

"I CAN'T!" Rory screams. There's a brief, shocked space of silence. "It never stops! It. Never. Stops! And now it's loud, it's so loud, it's so LOUD." The last word is almost a growl. He closes his eyes in pain. Opens them. Locks onto the Doctor. "You. Doctor. You're a Doctor. Fix this. Fix me!"

The gun is wavering dangerously. Rory has one hand pressed to his head and staggers almost drunkenly, off-balance. And Vastra is crouched, ready to spring. She must be waiting to hear his reply. The Doctor closes his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I'm so very, very, sorry..."

The gun goes off at the same time Vastra leaps and knocks Rory down, and the shot goes wide. Amy screams and doesn't stop.

Rory and Vastra are rolling over and over, snarling and hissing and cuffing and clawing. The Doctor wishes he could turn away… but he can't. He can only watch.

"I will," he says quietly. "I promise. We'll sort this out, somehow..." He swallows hard. Somehow. It's a slippery term, and usually means "as we go along flying by the seat of our pants." Well. Always means that. He wishes he could promise for certain, promise for sure.

Vastra lands a hard blow on Rory's head, and he groans and goes still. The Doctor takes out his TARDIS key and heads for the blue box. Somehow will have to do. It's all they've got.


	7. Mourning

Thanks so much for all the nice reviews! :)

* * *

"What's wrong with him, Doctor?" Amy's passion is spent, and she stands next to the cell door with frostbitten eyes, Vastra's lace handkerchief dangling forgotten from her hand.

"Amy... Amy, you have to understand…" the Doctor begins, and stops. How to explain. He usually has words, so many words, and now, suddenly… he doesn't. You have to understand that Rory's not coming back. You have to understand that Rory's not what he seems. You have to understand...

Vastra appears next to Amy, terse and professional.

"I've confiscated the prisoner's belongings and clothing," she announces. "Here's the list; I have Jenny taken them to storage as we speak."

The Doctor takes one last, long look at the figure in the cell and turns to her.

"Thank you," he says. "You found the watch?"

"Yes."

"Have Jenny bring it to me as soon as she can."

"Yes, Doctor." Vastra isn't usually this polite, but her eyes are on Amy. "Is there anything… I can do?"

"No. But... thank you for your assistance."

Vastra leaves, and when the Doctor turns back to Amy, she's crying again. Or, more precisely, tears are coming out of her eyes. She doesn't seem to notice. The Doctor sighs and turns away, leaning his head on the TARDIS corridor.

"Oh, Pond…"

Inside the cell, Rory crouches in the corner, his back stubbornly turned against the door. They've handcuffed him—the next best thing to a straitjacket—but he keeps rapping the rhythm out on the wall. One two three four. One two three four. One two three four. One two three four.

"You. Doctor. Start talking," Amy says, but the fire is gone from her voice. "Start talking now. What's wrong with him? What's wrong with Rory?"

"Rory… he isn't…" the Doctor fumbles for words. "Rory isn't Rory." Inspiration comes to him, and he rocks himself off the wall and starts talking. "Once upon a time, there were two boys who played in the field together, until they turned eight. You have to understand, Pond, that growing up on Gallifrey isn't like growing up on Earth—when they, when we, we…" he stops, helpless, recalling something Rory said. "It's a rite of passage thing, y'see, like shaving or getting your first car, only instead of getting a clean chin or a shiny new Buick, you stare into the Untempered Schism where all of time and reality is bound together in a glorious, horrible transdimensional spiral. It… well, you're never really the same after looking into something like that. But most people learn to deal with it, they shut it out or replace the memory with something else, they live normal lives. Well, close to normal lives. Normal for Time Lords, anyway."

Amy stares at him with widening eyes.

"Rory's a Time Lord?" she blurts.

"Yes. No. …I'm getting to that bit. There's a few, a very few, who break when they look into the… thingy. Some become geniuses, more than geniuses, gods or those that call themselves gods. Some… run away, and never stop running." He can't help the catch in his breath. "Some go mad. And Pond, what a sharp, burning, brilliant madness it is. It eats them up from the inside, grinds them away 'til there's nothing left.

"Now these two boys I told you about, they walked to the place where the sky breaks and looked into it. One ran. But the other broke. His mind split, and the place where his thoughts should be…" the Doctor shook his head, recalling the brief agony of sharing a thought with the Master, years ago. "Drumbeats. He became filled with the sound of drumbeats. And yes, he went mad."

Amy's crying again, silently and without moving her lips. The tears streak down her cheeks unnoticed.

"After that, well. The boy who ran grew up, and his—the other came after him, full of arrogance and war and the sound of drums. Gallifrey's most infamous child. He tried to kill me. First he chased me, then I chased him, and then the Council—not here anymore, long story—chased him, and the drums chased him, and I searched for him across the times… so many times. He killed and died and came back, again and again. He made himself human and hid for years at a time, but I always found him. I was always… I was…" he falters.

"You're lying," Amy says quietly. "You're lying. It can't be."

"I never thought he'd hide so close," the Doctor says bitterly. "I never thought he could."

Amy turns away for a moment, looking into the cell.

"So," she says hollowly, turning back to him. "Who is he? This… friend of yours. What's his name? What's he like? I may as well start getting to know the man I married."

* * *

Rory's head will split. The drums thunder incessantly, each blow flashing white pain behind his forehead, and he can't stop. He taps on the floor, channeling some of the energy, some of the drumbeats, out of him into the floor. He should be crying. He should be thinking about… somebody. But there's nothing there anymore, only pain and drumbeats. All the memories, he thinks. He kept the door closed, but there's too many _memories_. Too strong. They're beating on the inside, trying to get out, and he can barely feel it. It's an odd sort of numbness—no feeling in most of his mind, all pain in the front, where the drums beat. Drums. Beat. Three. Four.

He hears Amy and the Doctor talking, but they're a long way away. They sound like—like voices wrapped in cotton. Or a scratchy recorded conversation held long ago and broadcasting from a great distance.

"…dangerous, you see. Can't keep him here where…"

"…wouldn't! You wouldn't! He's my husband!"

"…must understand. She'll try to… Time War… play us against each other… won't let… split the lock from the key… friend in Cardiff… go after… give us time…"

"...protect... always there..."

"Give it to me then."

That last sentence is in sharp focus. Rory's head snaps up and he half-turns, half-scrambles to see who's talking. Outside his cell, Amy and the Doctor jump at his sudden movement. Through the clear window in the TARDIS cell door, he sees them clearly. Amy and the Doctor. Together.

And for some reason, he hates the Doctor now more than ever. More than ever? He's never… hated… They're talking about him, and Amy gives the Doctor something small and round hard, something familiar, something that should be his. Something that should be his! Rory glares at the Doctor with a sudden, unexpected ferocity and twists at his cuffs, and both people move back from the door.

* * *

"So what, we just—leave him at this Torchwood place?" Amy's not happy with the plan, but the Doctor sets his mouth firmly.

"Yes. Until I get this whole—thing—sorted. The Master was always volatile and—unpredictable." The Doctor flips a large switch on the console. "I want to make sure he comes back to himself when we're not in the middle of a war."

"Why bring him back at all?"

Amy's question hangs in the air, brittle and hopeful and defiant all at once. The Doctor stops.

"What?"

"He won't—remember without the watch, so why bring him back?" Amy says.

"Pond, that's not funny. He's got to come back. He's the only other Time Lord in existence. The only other one. Just think of that for a moment."

"He's my husband!" Amy snaps. Immediately, she draws back a little. "And the Master's your enemy, yeah? Like, a space terrorist. You don't want to bring him back. Just, just give me the watch—"

She reaches for it with ragged desperation, and the Doctor backs up quickly.

"And what about the drums?" he asks quietly. "Something's wrong, Amy, he shouldn't be hearing the drums. He shouldn't be remembering. His consciousness is seeping back into him, it's bleeding back despite the arch and the memories and the time and everything. Do you know what happens to a human body with a Time Lord consciousness in it? Do you?"

"It's—it's just that watch, just that bloody watch," Amy says stubbornly. Desperately. "Just give it to me, Doctor. Just get rid of it. Get rid of it and I can have Rory back."

"You can't. He's going to die." The words are so quiet, so still, but Amy freezes and draws her breath in sharply, painfully. She stands there, not breathing, not moving, and the Doctor sees tears forming in her eyes. "You can't leave him like this, Amy. He's going to wake up, and his human body won't hold his mind. It will kill him, Amy, kill him slowly."

"I will have him back," she says in a high, tremulous whisper. "I will have my husband back."

The Doctor looks at her with sad, tired eyes.

"I'm sorry," he says. And somehow, that's enough to explain everything. Amy's face crumples, and she runs from the console room, trying to hold in the sobs and failing. The Doctor sighs wearily, closes his eyes for a moment, and pulls down the TARDIS lever to set the course for 21st century Cardiff.

* * *

Of course Jack is waiting when the TARDIS doors open. He's got his pack on his back and a wide grin on his face, obviously hoping for a quick adventure or romp at a famous party before being dropped off to resume his Torchwood work. His smile falters when he sees the Doctor's face.

"Uh oh. I'm guessing this isn't going to be one of the fun visits. Nice suit, by the way. I could get used to this regeneration."

"Jack. I'm so glad to see you here. Long story, but basically…" He can't finish. The Doctor rubs his forehead, trying to regain his manic charm. "I need you to watch a prisoner for me," he says quietly.

Jack raises his eyebrows.

"What kind of prisoner?"

"A friend. A—companion. It's complicated. People are coming for him and he's not himself at the moment."

"Well, that's not at all mysterious or foreboding," Jack says sarcastically. He peers around the Doctor's shoulders, trying to see inside the TARDIS. "Who is the unlucky guy? And what happened to him? And, most importantly, Doctor…" he stops and looks the Doctor square in the eye. "What's the risk factor to my team if we hold him for you?"

The Doctor turns away quickly.

"Minimal," he lies.

* * *

They walk Rory out between two guards—half for nominal security, half because Rory's dizzy and uncoordinated and keeps tripping over his own feet. Amy walks behind. The Doctor is unpleasantly reminded of war funerals (he's seen so many), and the trailing widow.


	8. Mysteries

Hey, all, thanks for the comments! I got several reviews commenting on the angst level, so here's a bit of plot and fluff.

* * *

"So, the guy…" Jack says, flicking a thumb at the cell door. "Companion of yours, you said?"

"Yes," the Doctor replies. "Married. _Happily _married. So don't start with either one of them."

Jack rocks back on his heels, grinning.

"Traveling with a couple now, huh? I like it. Moving—"

"Enough, Jack," says the Doctor, quietly. Jack's smile wavers, falls. He swallows and knots his hands.

"Okay. Okay, I understand," he says. He glances in the door. "You really care about this one, don't you? Or is it the girl, Amy?" The Doctor keeps his face still, but Jack raises an eyebrow knowingly. "It's him. And why…" he trails off, watching Rory in the cell. It's a comfortable cell—low-security for Torchwood, walls coated with a unyielding soft whiteness for "special guests" who can break walls and shatter metal. A mattress, no bed. A screen in one wall. Rory hunches on the bed, hand caught in a solid, slightly more humane 51st-century single-piece cuff. Hands in front of him. Hands by the floor. He taps.

Jack's eyes narrow, and suddenly he whirls on the Doctor. Before the Doctor can put up his hands, reach for the sonic, anything, he's pinned against the wall.

"Ah—Jack—er—" he sputters.

"How could you do it? How could you bring… him… here?" Jack stops, breathing in heavily. His eyes are dark, equal parts fear and hurt and anger and hatred. "I don't believe this."

"Now, Jack, listen—"

"Listen? What could you possibly say—" Jack flounders, raising an arm to gesture at the cell haphazardly. "You brought him back. And then you brought him here." Jack releases the Doctor and crosses his arms. "I sure hope you have a good explanation, Doctor, because I'm dying to hear it."

The Doctor coughs and rubs his throat a little.

"He's my companion," he begins.

"No, he's my husband," Amy's voice cuts in. Both the Doctor and Jack stop and turn. Standing at the opposite end of the hallway, Amy has changed into a Torchwood uniform (the Doctor makes a mental Post-it to ask where and why and if he can get one) and is flanked by River Song and a slightly older, slightly harder Martha Jones. All three have guns. Big guns.

"No," River Song says, with an infuriating smile. "He's my father."

Martha looks awkward.

"I just hate him and think he's an awful politician. Sorry to ruin the… suspense."

The Doctor could almost laugh. He takes out the fob watch and flashes it at Jack, quickly.

"Quick run. Master, Chameleon Arch, Rory Williams, my companion, only figured it out…" he pauses. When had he figured it out? "A bit ago. After he'd been traveling with me—us—for quite some time. Oh, and married to Amy, father of River, involved in some sort of Time War allied with or manipulated by an unpleasant female in an eyepatch. Also she's working with silent aliens that you can't remember when you're not looking at them!" the Doctor pauses only to gasp in breath. "But I'll get to that in a moment. For now—keep him here, keep him safe, don't let him escape and especially don't let anyone take him. Questions?"

"You're not going to bring the Master back, are you?" Martha asks.

"No," River Song replies, before the Doctor can say anything. Amy opens her mouth angrily, and River continues quickly, "He won't."

"And you would be…" Jack says.

"Professor River Song. Archeologist, assassin, ex-convict, time traveler." She smiles smoothly and pats the handle of her guns. One of her guns. "And you're Jack Harkness. I must say, you look much better with legs."

"Uh… thank you, I think. And may I compliment you—"

"Save it, sweetie. I'm taken." River Song brushes by him and grabs the Doctor's hand. "Oh, and my timeline is running backwards with his. And yours, apparently, Mr. Fixed Point. Last time we met…" she purses her lips. "Well, that would be a spoiler." She straightens, suddenly serious. "Doctor, we need to talk."

"Damn straight," Jack complains.

"We need to talk privately. I can't stay long."

The Doctor frowns and lets himself be led away into an empty interrogation room.

* * *

"So," Jack says, flashing Amy an easy smile. "What's your name?"

Martha rolls her eyes as Amy half-turns, eyes widening in baffled surprise.

"You're flirting with me."

Jack blinks a few times and turns up the smile a few notches.

"You're flirting with me," Amy repeats. "My husband's in cuffs, turning into a homicidal madman from another planet, and you're flirting with me."

Jack's smile falters, but he keeps it plastered firmly in place.

"Um. I suppose you could call it that—"

Amy laughs—a bit strained, but a genuine laugh—and claps a hand to her mouth. Jack laughs too and inwardly breathes a sigh of relief.

"You know, you never did tell me your name," he says, sauntering a few steps closer to her. Amy laughs.

"Amy. Amy Pond. Er, Pond Williams." She sighs, twirls her scarf in her hands. "We never did decide on the last name. How to split it, I mean. And you're… Jack."

"Captain Jack Harkness, that's me."

"Watch it, Jack, she's married," Martha puts in.

"Jealous, mon cherie?" Jack winks heavily at her before turning back to Amy. "Seriously, though, if you're…"

"Oh, yes. I'm absolutely…" says Amy. "Very…" she nods slowly. "Doesn't mean we can't have a bit of harmless—flirting, though."

"Cheer you up," Jack says.

"That's right. You know, Jack," says Amy, a little smile coming back into her face. "I used to be a kissogram."

Jack raises his eyebrows and grins.

"Tell me about it."

* * *

River drags the Doctor into the room and, abruptly, lets go of his hand. Surprised, the Doctor falls back a few steps and drops into a hard metal chair while River shuts the door. She pulls something from her pocket and points it at the two cameras in the corner. There's a flash of green light and low hum, and the cameras spark and jolt.

"What's this about, River?" He keeps his voice even, steady. Controlled.

"I'm not the right River," she says, point-blank.

"What?"

"I'm not the right River. I'm several thousand years ahead of my timeline—my current timeline, or the one here." River stops and takes in a deep breath. "Kovarian downloaded—or will download—me from CAL. I'm just Flesh—again." Her mouth quirks into a wry smile. "For now. Give me a few years and Daddy dearest will fix that."

"Daddy dearest…" The Doctor's jaw drops, because suddenly he realizes. "Oh my—he's my father-in-law now!" He staggers backwards. "Oh—Rassilon. I'm never going to hear the end of this."

River smiles.

"No, you won't. But, to stay on point, Doctor—I'm the future River. Came back to warn you and because I knew I'd be avoiding you here, trying to avoid meeting myself as an infant. So. Listen." She leans forward, placing her palms flat against the steel tabletop. "The woman you're up against is called Madame Kovarian. She's also the current High One of the Silence. And no, they're not a species, they're a—a sort of religious movement. The ultimate illuminati."

"And Kovarian is what… high priestess?"

"Of a kind. The Silence is also an information-gathering body; they call themselves Academy of the Question."

"The question…"

"The Question that must never be asked, because if it is answered, Silence will fall. Silence and the end of all things," River says grimly. "Because of that, Doctor, they want you dead."

"Because of the Question?"

"Because of the Answer. –But not Kovarian. She wants you alive. You see, she's the High One of the Silence, but she's not Silent herself. She wants the Question answered—and she's using the Silence to bring the Question and Answer together."

The Doctor's eyes widen.

"'Now I bring our paramount into play,'" he says. "The Question and the Answer. The Doctor and—" he breaks off.

"That's only part of it. I haven't figured out exactly—" River stops, shakes her head. "She's very cruel, and very cunning. That I know firsthand. And she's very good at manipulating people. She wants the Question answered so that Silence may fall, I know that much, but why and how—" she breaks off, chewing her lip nervously. "I've seen so many futures. Timelines where the stars fail and the sky breaks and everything and everyone is dark and dead and empty. That is what Kovarian wants. That is what she brings. I can see it, in her eyes… the emptiness, the endless silence."

"And those—those aliens working with her, the ones you can't remember—"

"Ah-ah-ah, spoilers. You'll want to ask your friend when he's back about that. Now," River glances at her wrist-thingummy. "I've got about an hour and a half before I've got to be back in the future-past-future. Care for a drink?"


	9. Martha

A/N: Hey everyone! I'm really sorry about not updating. I have some excuses here (takes out box). Final exams? Internet going away for a week?

I hope you enjoy, and remember to review! :D

* * *

"So she's really the Doctor's wife?" Martha asks. She keeps her face carefully averted, fiddling with something on the cell door. She's been adding security measures—the Master won't be escaping on her watch.

"Yeah," Amy says. "My daughter, the Doctor's wife… I think she's the one to kill him too."

"Kill him?" Jack says disbelievingly. "You can't kill the Doctor. Not permanently."

"Sure you can," Martha says. "He told me once there's a fixed number of regenerations. And he… I mean, the Time War… he's the last Time Lord. There's got to be ways of killing a Time Lord without waiting for them to run out of regenerations." She flips the switch on her latest "security measure" and it hums softly and glows blue. "Something to stop the regeneration process, or, I don't know."

"No, you're right," Amy says softly. "I was there. I saw the astronaut—I saw River, I think, come out of the lake and kill him. She shot him once and then again, in the middle of the regeneration process… somebody said it interrupted the regeneration." She swallows. "We burned his body."

"We burned the Master's body, and he's sitting in there glaring at us right now," Jack points out. All three stop and look into the cell. Sure enough, Rory is leaning against the wall in the farthest part of the cell, tapping and glaring defiantly.

"Well," Martha says, after a moment. "You do have a point."

At that moment, the Doctor rounds the corner, skidding and almost tripping on his own feet.

"New plan," he announces, pointing at Jack and Martha. "Torchwood-ites, you're staying here with Rory. Master. Rory-Master? Rory. Amy, you're with me. We're going—"

"I'm not leaving him."

The Doctor pauses for the fraction of a second, takes in Amy's expression, and nods.

"Martha, you're with me. We're going to meet a friend."

"So that's it, I'm just a—a back-up Amy now?" Martha complains, but she slings her gun over her shoulder and follows the Doctor with a light in her eye.

* * *

"Who's this friend, then?" Martha asks, when they're both on the TARDIS. Across the console room, Vastra is curled gracefully around Jenny's sleeping form. She stirs slightly, reptilian double eyelid blinking once, twice. "Another—Silurian?"

"What? No."

"Okay… Another Time Lord, then? Somebody who's been through the Time War?"

"No to the first, yes to the second," the Doctor says. "And it's not—well, I suppose you'd call it an entity. The Archive. It's a, a catalogue of all the information in the universe. Older than the Time Lords, older than most anything. Though we did a lot to improve and add to the Archive."

"And it's, what, a giant library?" Martha asks. "A computer?"

"Yes, and yes. Closer to the second. Incredible data storage and analysis, incredible." The Doctor stops and smiles. "I had a friend once—a Time Lady—who sold two of her regenerations for ten minutes' access to the Archive's repositories."

"So it's a library or something, but you called it a friend."

The Doctor smiles, and Martha's heart almost skips a beat. Damn it. She'd thought she was over him. But this new regeneration… Martha swallows and looks down. He's a little softer, a little calmer, a little younger. She wonders what he's like, this new-and-ancient Doctor. For a moment, a spark of envy for Amy flickers across her mind.

"Martha Jones," the Doctor says. "You've seen living suns, living clouds, invisible creatures that speak with the voices of angels… and you think that a complex system, designed to preserve and analyze data, can't achieve a little sentience?" He laughs. "It would be a miracle if it didn't gain sentience, really. And self-consciousness. You can ask it about the difference when you meet it—though don't expect a simple answer, or a short one."

"It? You call it a friend, but it's still 'it?'"

"Not my fault English doesn't have a gender-neutral pronoun," the Doctor says. He pulls down a lever, and the TARDIS shudders. "Poor girl. She doesn't like getting too close to the Archive's housing. Remind me to tell you about the time we almost got catalogued. Oh! Don't forget the air shields, old girl!"

The glowing hollow tubes in the TARDIS housing slide slower and slower, and finally stop. The Doctor smiles with an effort, adjusts his bow tie, and opens the door. Martha follows him, glancing back at Vastra and Jenny, both sleeping in the TARDIS. She wonders if they're the Doctor's next companions. He certainly can't keep Amy and—and _him. _No matter what the Doctor might say, the Master will never travel with him. Martha knows that for… well, at least… She steps outside and closes the door behind her. And then she gasps.

It's absolutely huge—vastly, awe-inspiringly, mind-breakingly huge. She's not sure what it is exactly—some sort of spaceship? A space station? A cosmic-scale computer?—but she knows enough to realize that, without the TARDIS air shields, she and the Doctor would be dead by now. The Archive housing is all metal, something black and slightly dull, and seems to be a—if she didn't think it was impossible, she'd call it a housing or orbit structure for the sparkling nebula behind (or within) it.

"Oh my God…" she says, blinking.

"I know," the Doctor says. "I know. A lot to take in, isn't it?"

"It's—it's like that thing on the globe at home, in the classroom," Martha realizes. "But that—glowy space cloud, that is the globe. Is that part of the Archive?"

"That is the Archive. The structure is just the housing. Something to let little insects like you and me access the data," the Doctor explains. And sure enough, the structure revolves slowly—or maybe it just looks slow, something that massive moving that far—and a port in the side opens to release a long metal walkway.

"I can't believe it," Martha says, breathlessly. The inside of the structure is bare metal and white light, and the hallway is never lit beyond a few feet before and in front of them. She suspects the Archive doesn't get many visitors. "Are we—I mean, do many people come here? I'd think they would. All the information in the universe—"

"Incorrect." The voice reverberates around the hall. Not a voice. Her voice. Martha's voice. "The universe is incomplete, therefore all the information in the universe has yet to be produced. I cannot assimilate information which has not yet been assimilated. Nor can I analyze it. And I do not permit many visitors. The Doctor is one of the privileged few. Very few."

"Hello, Archive," the Doctor says slowly. "It's been a long time."

"Hello, Time Lord." It's his vioce. "You preserved my existence. I would be more than happy to provide you with information."

"A library card holder, hm?" Martha says under her breath.

The Doctor glances at her, almost a smile, and addresses the Archive.

"We're looking for information on Madame Kovarian, the Silence, and any current data on the Second Time War," he says. "And I have something for you, in return."

"Quid pro quo?" Martha's voice, amused. "Very good, Doctor. One second. I am accessing data… accessing data… formatting for relevance…"

Suddenly, Madame Kovarian appears a few feet in front of them. Martha jumps, falling backwards, before realizing it's just a hologram.

"Madame Kovarian," the Archive announces. The voice is clear and high now, a high-quality speech program that almost, but not quite, masks the robotic buzz in the back of the syllables. "A class-four sentient humanoid, female, currently located somewhere in the Golden Spiral solar system. The last survivor of Kovaria, currently using an alias indicating her status as the last Kovarian. Little known. One of my probes witnessed her burning Gloridan Five Three eighty-six Earth years past. Currently, the Kovarian heads up the Silence, a religious order which began as an attendant phalanx to one of my repositories but, in twenty-first century Earth vernacular, 'went rogue.'" There was a moment of silence before the Archive went on, "I reference that location and time for you, Martha Jones, since my scans indicate you are from that—"

"Yes, that's right," Martha interrupts. "Go on."

"The Silence were an attendant phalanx to one of my repositories—a section dedicated to preserving the ontological tradition and related technologies of three related Higher Species. Thal, Dal, and Kaled."

The Doctor visibly stiffens at that, and Martha looks up at him.

"What is it?"

"The Silence were one of your, your groups of attendants," he says. "Phalanxes or whatever you call them. Meaning they were preserving, organizing, and analyzing the data you collected, is that right?"

"That is correct."

"And they were working on the philosophical and technological traditions that led to the creation of the Daleks?"

"The Daleks took their beginning in the philosophical and technological traditions contained in that repository, yes," the Archive replies, sounding slightly annoyed. "However, Dalek being, culture, and thought were not the fullest nor final expression of those traditions."

"What was?"

"They were never completed. The Thals and Dals were working jointly on the problem of, simply put, rewriting the fabric of reality. The Thals hoped to transcend their being. The Dals, due to a unique cultural history, viewed the ultimate expression of all being as…"

"As what?" the Doctor asks.

"As nothing. Their exact expression is—"

"'Silence and the end of all things,'" the Doctor finishes grimly, speaking at the same time as the Archive. "I know. I've heard it before. So, so, just let me guess. They became obsessed with solving the problem themselves, organized themselves into a little think tank that evolved into a religion, and the Kovarian swooped in thinking she'd, what, erase the universe?"

"That's a very crude and simplistic way of putting it, but yes."

"But why? What has she got against everything? Because the silence-and-end-of-all-things, that's total annihilation of everything. Not just a race, or a species, or a planetary species set, or a galactic set of variant species. No, it's everything. Every man, woman, and child of every shape and size and color; every blade of grass and twisting vine and borogrove. Every bird and bat-bird and flying ball. Every robot. Every bacterium. Every living thing. Think about that for a moment. Who would want to kill _everything?"_

There's a long silence.

"I do not know," the Archive confesses, at last. "Insufficent data."

"Well, if you don't know, who does?" Martha asks.

"It has yet to be discovered."

"Right. That's not cryptic at all. And the Second Time War?"

"Is nothing more than a rumor from a distant probe. But. If I had to extrapolate…" the Archive clearly sighs. "There have been… significant temporal disturbances around the Silence. There are rumors from the remnant of the Daleks that a second war is coming—plausible rumors that might be confirmed by the disturbances."

"A second war? A second war? What type of war? Talk to me, Archive, you big, beautiful, mechanical… what kind of war?"

There's a long pause.

"Insufficient data."

"Well, that's helpful," Martha mutters.

"But do you know who's involved in the war? Any guesses, any hints about the two sides?"

"Insufficient data."

There's a long, cold silence before the Archive speaks again.

"Where is Jack Harkness?"

"Jack? How do you know about-?" the Doctor stops and looks up at the sky. "He didn't."

"He is a very interesting specimen," the Archive replies, and there's a hint of—something in that cold voice. "I would like to encounter him again."

"I'll bet you would," the Doctor mutters. "Martha, remind me to slap him when we get home. Thank you, Archive, and now—" he steps forward and holds up the Master's fob watch. "I have something for you to analyze. Analyze only, no cataloguing."

The metal voice laughs from the ceiling.

"Why would I catalogue the fob watch of Koschei the Deathless?" The Archive sounds almost amused. "I have three specimens in holding already. Remnants of the dead Ch'ia'ptshka—the planet you call House."

"You scavenged his bones and preserved what you could," the Doctor mutters.

"That is the proper function of an Archive. Hold still, Doctor. Analyzing."

Instinctively, Martha throws her hands up as the whole corridor floods with light. She peers up between her fingers, trying to open her eyes as little as possible while still looking out, and makes out the Doctor staggering backwards slightly but holding the fob watch steady. Abruptly, the lights cut and the corridor returns to dimness.

"It is indeed Koschei's fob watch," the Archive announces. "I assume you wanted me to ascertain… yes, it is. It was activated in… the Apex TARDIS, commonly designated as the Chariot of Rassilon."

"But the Chariot—that's—it can't be," the Doctor frowns. "He couldn't have been made Lord President, not him, not after what he did with the White Star… and there's the whole business of the election. It's impossible." He sighs and puts a hand on the back of his neck. "So he probably kidnapped the Lord or Lady President and stole the Chariot himself. Wish I could say I was surprised. Oh! Archive! There's not any chance… I mean… the Chariot…"

"The Chariot was cannibalized by House," the Archive answers smoothly. "I'm sorry, Doctor. It's gone." Suddenly, the whole atmosphere shifts. Martha looks up. That feeling… it's like the static electricity experiments she tried in primary school. Everything stands on end.

"Attention, Doctor." The Archive's voice slips and blurs into a recorded voice. A military man's. "Vacate the premises. This station has detected hostile forces. The Archive is under attack."

The lights in the hallways are flashing red as the Doctor and Martha run for the TARDIS. The only thing missing is a klaxon.

"Doctor…" Martha hesitates, teetering on the catwalk. "Doctor, what's that?"

Because there's something coming. If it had been the desert, and she had been a traveler lost a long way and looking out into the endless expanse of sand and sky, she would have called it a sandstorm. The way it whips along, the edges curling and billowing, the center all fury and flashing with hidden lightning, or something like lightning… but it isn't sand. It's… something. Something enormous. A storm in space, dwarfing the Archive and turning the TARDIS into a speck of blue and white. Martha sways, dizzy. And a hand catches at her elbow.

"Come on! We've got to make the TARDIS! We've got to get out of here!"

The race down the retracting catwalk, trusting the TARDIS pulsors to guide them back to the timeship. Martha lands breathless on the floor. Behind her, as the door swings close, she sees a white-hot shield leap out and surround the Archive. And then the storm breaks.


	10. Mayhem

The Doctor recognizes the storm as soon as he sees it, and he goes pale. Not good. Definitely not good. The last time he saw that storm… he closes his eyes, shutting it out. The last resort, the very last weapon used in what should have been the last of the time wars. The Moment. The last of the hideous paradoxes, weaponized and spreading across the whole of Gallifrey and Skaro like a storm. A terrible, relentless, oncoming storm.

And now someone wants to trap them the same way. The Doctor gulps in breath and starts running, Martha just behind him. No time to think, just run. Just run. Make the end of the catwalk. Jump. Fall. Get up, get up, get up! The Doctor races frantically to the TARDIS and starts the emergency warp sequence. They'll have to go through the vortex, but he wishes they didn't have to risk it. Hurry! The TARDIS must have guessed at something like this. She's helping, levers flipping and dials turning on their own.

"Doctor." It's Vastra, focused and controlled as ever. "What is it, Doctor? What's out there?"

"Time Lock," he says shortly. "A Time Lord superweapon. Only used once, only had to be used once."

"What, like the atomic bomb?" Martha asks.

"Don't be ridiculous," the Doctor says, pulling down the last handle and falling back as the TARDIS takes off. "The atomic bomb left survivors when it hit."

"Well, you survived, didn't you?" Martha asks. The Doctor stops and slowly, reluctantly, raises his eyes to meet hers. She understands. And takes a step backwards. "Because you fired it. Is that it? You, you…"

Vastra steps in then, throwing a dagger-glance at Martha. She turns on the Doctor.

"He survived, didn't he?" she demands. "The Master. He survived. He survived!"

It's a challenge. The Doctor stays silent, but he grips the fob watch a bit more tightly. Yes, the Master survived. Through some sort of… miracle.

Just then, the phone rings.

And then everything goes silent.

The Doctor jolts upright, the sheer _wrongness_ of the room almost painful. Everything is silent and reality is slipped and frozen. He knows this feeling. A fixed point in time. Across the room, Martha looks at him with hands covering her mouth, but her eyes don't move right. They don't look right, not to his Time Lord vision, even as they blink slowly, too quickly, and Martha turns her head. She moves like very advanced animatronics, like… like… she can't make any choice. Because things have got to happen this way. Slowly, mechanically, the Doctor moves to the console and picks up the phone.

"Yes, hello? This is the Doctor speaking."

"Doctor!" Jack almost shouts. "Doctor, you've got to get back here. We're under attack. The whole Earth is under attack!"

There are gunshots in the background.

"Jack? Jack, what's going on? Where's the Master? I mean, where's Rory and Amy?"

"You just had to ask about them, didn't you?" Jack snaps. "Amy's with me. We're being attacked by—I don't—we're being attacked—"

"We're being attacked by the Silence, Doctor." Amy takes over. "We don't know where they are. We've killed about six so far but they—we keep looking away and forgetting. We're barricaded in the interrogation room. I can see Rory's... Rory's room. I can see it. Now come back, please, you've got to come back."

"Doctor," Vastra says. The Doctor looks up. She's standing on the console, looking up into the TARDIS engine tubing. "Please tell me it's supposed to stop like that."

The Doctor looks up frantically. The TARDIS is stopped. For a moment he thinks they're caught in the Moment, and then it moves against, fighting. They must be on the very edges of the Moment, and the TARDIS is struggling to get clear. Just then, the TARDIS shakes and there's a dull boom from outside. They're struggling to get clear and under attack by persons unknown.

"Listen, Amy, I'm on my way but it may take… longer than usual," the Doctor says.

"What? We need you now!"

"I'm coming as fast as I can!" The Doctor grimaces, watching the TARDIS control console spark and flicker. "Listen, tell Jack he needs to pull his people out and flood the halls with, I don't know, gas or pesticide or weevils because I know he has them! Don't turn your back either. And don't let them get to Rory's cell. We're…" another boom, and the TARDIS shudders violently. "We're on our way back."

"Doctor!" Martha shrieks.

The Doctor looks up just in time to see a crack run down one side of the TARDIS wall. That shouldn't be possible. They're in the center, in the console room of the TARDIS, it shouldn't…

The crack widens. For a moment, the Doctor has a clear view through. There's an all-too-familiar ship, all armed and cracking with fire and death rays, and it's caught in the Moment. Just before it, hanging heavily like an iron whale in the glow of the Moment, a blank silver ship moves closer and closer. The crack closes and the Doctor stumbles backwards.

"But that's impossible," he gasps. "Martha, that's… they've found… I mean… they've found a way to put a ship through the Moment. It's brilliant. They've frozen everything, and now they, they…" He shakes his head. How is that even possible?

"They can pick off anyone stuck in that storm-thing?" Martha asks.

The Doctor nods, lost for words. The game has just changed. They can't just use existing technology, they're dealing with something new. Something totally… inconceivably...

They need help. That much is obvious. They need someone who can figure out the new weapon and build a counter-weapon. And, much as he hates to admit it, the Doctor knows when he's out of his range. In his jacket pocket, the fob watch throbs and whispers. A genius. A military genius.

"A masterful strategy," Vastra notes, bringing the Doctor back to the present. "Jenny, darling, bring me the gun. If we're caught in this mess, we'll go down fighting."

"Don't think we need to yet." The Doctor almost skips over to the console and slides underneath. "It'll be a shock to her system, but I think we can get clear. And then get back to Jack."

"To help him fight off the Silence," Martha says.

The Doctor licks his lips and nods. As he sonics the bolt off the TARDIS panel and surveys the familiar machinery, he's already thinking ahead.

* * *

Torchwood is never going to be the same. That's all Jack can think about, even as he sets his jaw and takes aim at a bulbous head peering around the corner. They flooded the hallways with knockout gas at the Doctor's suggestion, but failed to knock out the Silence. Upon which they added a little methane and tossed a match into it, at Ianto's suggestion.

"Sure takes his time getting here," Jack says easily. Beside him, Amy's peering down the scope of her own rifle. Gutsy, this one.

"You're telling me," she says. Closes one eye. Takes out a Silence. "Waited twelve years for that one."

"Ouch."

"Yes, well, that's the way the world turns."

Amy turns to look at him, and Jack swallows. Is it just him, or do the Doctor's companions keep getting hotter and hotter? Well, hotter and hotter after him. Amy's eyebrows quirk up a little, and Jack realizes she realizes he's looking at her.

With a smile, he turns back to his rifle.

And realizes the Silence have stolen a march on him. The hallway is filled with them, staring down with baleful eyes and training disintegration rays on the two.

Jack sighs.

"Well, gents, I really didn't want to have to do this, but you leave me no choice." He stands and dusts himself off, positioning himself in front of Amy. "River. Release the weevils."

The moment the TARDIS doors open, it's total chaos. The air has a harsh burned aftertaste to it. People are rushing about here and there—and not people either, but dark twisted shapes and things that flicker in your eyes on the edge of forgetfulness. There's a lot of screaming and screeching. And gunfire.

The Doctor takes a deep breath, feels for the watch, and steps out into the mayhem.

He knows what he needs to do: get the watch to Rory. Get the watch to Rory, bring back the Master, and then… well, he'll think of something then.

Vaguely, he realizes that Amy's screaming and Martha's fighting something just beside him. He feels River's mind brushing his as she comes up behind him, and registers the shock of ionization as she vaporizes something. The Doctor keeps moving. Down the hallway, screwdriver set to stun or break concentration, open the doors, run. A growling creature shoots between his legs. Jack is cursing and dying.

He's almost to the door, almost there, when something goes off right next to him.

It should make a sound, why doesn't it make a sound? There was the flash and the shockwave, why didn't he hear something? It can't be good, and everything is prickling again…

The Doctor opens his eyes. He's lying on the floor, eye-level with a Silence corpse, and the sonic screwdriver's a few inches from his hand. Everything's silent now. He hopes he hasn't been out for long.

Can't move. Head ringing. That's new. His vision blurs, and then he sees a pair of heels come into view. Someone rolls him over onto his back, and he sees her plain. The Kovarian. She smiles harshly, and her perception filter flickers for a moment, freezing reality for a split second. The Doctor's heart skips a beat. It's wrong, wrong, all wrong. This isn't a fixed point in time, shouldn't be, couldn't be, how is she doing it—

Someone shoots at the Kovarian, and the Doctor closes his eyes. When he opens them, he's propped up on rubble and Amy's face is very close.

"Amy," he says, but he can't hear his own voice. She's explaining something, and he tries to focus on what's happening at the end of the hall. Kovarian is fighting something. Amy's shaking him, and the Doctor realizes he needs to act now.

He fumbles for the watch. Brings it out. He tries to explain, but for once, words aren't coming. He presses the watch into Amy's hands and nods. And she understands.

* * *

"Amy." Rory's voice is thick and numb, but he keeps his eyes on his wife. Slowly, painfully, he gets to his feet and shambles to the cell door. Amy's face looks so white and… empty. Pain shoots through Rory between the drumbeats, and he breathes heavily, desperately. "What's wrong, Amy? What's happening to me?"

Amy starts to say something. Stops and blinks rapidly. Shakes her head.

"Do you remember the stars on the roof?" she says. "On the night you proposed?"

"Yes… no… I want to remember… I can't think." Rory's eyes are tearing up despite himself. "Tell me."

And Amy breathes in quickly, like she's trying not to cry.

"You—you were so eager to impress me that summer," she says. "That ridiculous haircut. You fed me lines about being in a band, having a hot car—" she laughs a little. "Even told me you had a beach house. None of it was true, of course." She presses a hand against the door. "But later… later you learned to play guitar. You started a band, so I could come hear you."

"I started a band," Rory repeats. "With that ridiculous haircut. I remember."

"And then, when you had the ring, you drove me to—to that ramshackle hotel on the seaside," Amy says. "Remember. Rory, remember. It was night when we got there, and we snuck up the fire escape and lay on the roof—"

"I made up stories," Rory says suddenly. "I, I pretended to know the constellations and, and planets and so on—" he winces a little, trying to ignore the pounding.

"Do you remember what you made me promise?"

"I… I… if you were far away…"

"_Look at the stars, Amy. They look like little pinpricks to us, like, uh, little points on a canvas, but really they're massive and huge and hundreds of millions of lightyears away from each other. But from here, they're like, like diamonds."_

"_I know." She shifts a little, impatiently. _

"_Do you ever think about… just, how big it all is? All the stars out there, up there…" Rory's entranced. "Hundreds and millions of them. Think of how much space…" he rolls over, face-to-face with her. "Amy. Listen." _

"_Rory—"_

"_If you were lost. If you were far away… if you got stuck up there, somehow, behind all the stars… I'd look for you."_

"_What?"_

"_Yeah. I'd, you know, keep looking. Wouldn't give up 'til I'd found you again. I'd get you back if I had to search them all, search the emptiness in between. Because…" suddenly, there's a little velvet box between them, and something inside flashes and sparkles like a tiny star. "There's no one else like you, Amy Pond, and there's no one else for me but you."_

Rory's head jerks back, and he gasps for breath.

"Rory," Amy says. "Rory. Rory. Rory. Rory. Oh, Rory. I'll find a way. I won't stop. There's no one else like you, not in the whole universe." She takes his hand, filling it with something round and hard and tingling. She leans forward and presses a kiss against his forehead, soft and real. For a moment, just a single moment, the drums falter.

And Amy Pond clicks the watch open.


End file.
